NATCHEZ — A Memphis businessman will visit Natchez next month to pitch a peer-tutoring program for schools in the Natchez-Adams School District.

NASD Board of Trustee members and district officials are scheduled to meet Aug. 20 with Charlie McVean, who started the program nearly a decade ago at East High School in Memphis, and has since expanded to other schools in Tennessee and Mississippi.

School board members approved the date for McVean’s visit Wednesday during a specially called meeting.

The four-hour presentation was organized in part by Natchez Mayor Butch Brown who said McVean expressed interest in bringing Natchez officials to Memphis nearly a year ago during a meeting the two attended regarding the Mississippi River.

Brown, NASD Superintendent Frederick Hill, deputy superintendent Tanisha Smith and two city aldermen traveled to Tennessee in April to visit with Memphis leaders and tour one of the city’s innovative high schools.

“Since we got back, I’ve been trying to find a time for Charlie to come down here, introduce his program to the school board here in Natchez and see what they think,” Brown said.

Peer Power is a non-profit organization that uses high-performing high school and college students to tutor younger public school students to improve their standardized test scores and college or job readiness.

Each school’s principals independently manage the programs, and tutors are paid an hourly wage.

Brown said the program he and school officials visited in Memphis was a display of the great things that can happen when students help other students.

“His goal in all of this is to make sure children that have the ability and the interest get an opportunity to have the additional tutoring and math skills and science skills to go further in life,” Brown said. “I think it works, and it’s something that would be good for us here in Natchez.”

NASD Board Vice President David Troutman said he was eager to hear McVean’s presentation.

“We’ve heard nothing but good things about it,” Troutman said. “It sounds interesting, and could be something we could benefit from.”

In other news from the meeting:

4The board approved an addition to its handbook that states any student who is enrolled in extracurricular or athletic activities must maintain a grade point average of 2.0 or higher.

Anything less will result in the student being suspended from participating in those activities.

NASD Deputy Superintendent Tanisha Smith said the addition should have always been a part of the district’s handbook.

“When we got one of our audits back, we realized this paragraph was missing from our handbook,” Smith said.